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Academic boycott as international solidarity

The academic boycott of Israel
Lawrence Davidson and Islah Jad

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oycotts are age-old undertakings. Unlike sanctions, which are enforced by governments and sometimes destroy the lives of millions of ordinary people (as in the case of the twelve-year sanctions against Iraq), boycotts are most often grassroots means of protest against the policies of governments. They can be undertaken by ordinary people to defend fellow human beings who are oppressed by governments and armies, and they can be deliberately restricted in scope to cause as little damage as possible to the lives of innocent people. Boycotts have historically been undertaken at many levels: they can be carried out against companies or industries (for instance, the California grape boycott of the 1970s, or the ongoing worldwide boycott of Nestlé products1); and against states (for instance the Jewish-initiated boycott of goods from Nazi Germany, or todayʼs evolving boycott of Israeli products and institutions in the face of that countryʼs colonialist occupation of the West Bank, Gaza and the Golan Heights). Thus, from a historical point of view, there is plenty of precedents for the tactic of boycott. And, as in the case of South Africa, public pressure through boycotts can eventually help force governments and organizations such as the United Nations to apply sanctions against a particular regime. In our view, an academic boycott of Israel should form part of a broader boycott and divestment effort involving economic, cultural and sports agendas. The call for a moratorium on relations with Israeli academic institutions has drawn widespread criticism. Much of this has come from people who are, to some degree, partisans of Israel. But some of it has its origins among those who have genuine concerns that innocent Israelis are being unnecessarily hurt, or that the boycott is undermining valued principles such as academic freedom and the free ﬂow of ideas. It is to this latter group that we would like to address the following arguments in the hope of taking up their concerns and, if not putting them to rest, at least putting them in a context that makes understandable the historical trade-offs inevitably involved in this struggle for justice. The call for a speciﬁcally academic boycott is based on several premisses. One is that, to date, all but a small number of Israeli academics have remained quiescent in the face of the violent colonial war their government is waging in the Occupied Territories. As a group they have had nothing to say about Israeli violations of scores of United Nations resolutions and the transgression of international law in the form of the Fourth Geneva Convention. This includes not only human rights violations of a general nature but also, speciﬁcally, the systematic destruction of Palestinian education and academia. Nor, as a group, have they come to the defence of their very few fellow academics who have been persecuted for openly criticizing Israeli policies against the Palestinians. A second and related premiss is that educational institutions and their teachers are

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The academy. these institutions do not analyse and explain the world in a way that promotes justice and reasonable compromise. Thus. Indeed. For instance. In general. not boycottsʼ. it was condemned in the West as a ʻdangerous escalationʼ of the Middle East crisis. various government agencies quickly recruited an array of academic departments and individuals. they can do so by joining the refusnik organizations. Through various forms of pressure they attempt to enforce only two alternatives: quiescence or active support. In times of stress. In general. all able-bodied Israeli Jews are subject to military service. They have tended to change over time. then. there are numerous examples of the direct involvement of Israeli academia and related professions in promoting and sustaining the oppressive measures of the Israeli government and in violations of human rights and of UN resolutions. There has been a great outcry against the violent tactics of resistance to Israeli occupation evolving among the Palestinians. More concretely. But it is precisely because ʻdialogueʼ on the Palestinian issue has been histori-
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.
Some general objections
Objections to the academic boycott of Israel have not been consistent. If they wish to resist serving as part of the occupation forces. and particularly scientiﬁc ﬁelds. opposition comes to equal disloyalty. almost all Israeli academics are military veterans and many will do reserve duty in the Territories. out of politics. at the beginning of the boycott there was a call to keep academia. If. documented involvement of Israeli doctors in torture. but rather acquiesce in aggressive colonialist practices. While as an ideal this may be an admirable goal. almost all Israeli academics ﬁnd themselves actively or passively supporting the occupation by virtue of Israelʼs policy of universal Jewish conscription. one can point to the active role taken by Bar-Ilan University in validating courses given by the colleges now being established in the settlements. to support their war effort. there is the particularly sinister. Finally. in the midst of extreme practices of oppression such as we have been witnessing in the Occupied Territories.principal agents in the shaping of future generationsʼ perceptions of their countryʼs relations with their neighbours and the world. Actions of boycott represent a non-violent way by which non-Israelis the world over can express their concern for what is now the worldʼs longest post-Second World War occupation and one of its bloodiest and most ethnically oriented. The intimidation and bribery directed at the rest of the academy to remain quiet and loyal was effective until the war itself became vastly unpopular. (With the exception of the ultra orthodox. there appears to be a de facto requirement that all non-ultraorthodox Israeli Jews must have served in the military just to be hired in most professions! It is an unwritten way of ﬁltering out non-Jews from the professional job market. The organizers of the boycott condemn this tactic even whilst understanding that it is a product of despair and desperation that the occupation itself has created. ranging from chemists to sociologists. Very few choose to do so. It also brought the Palestinians no relief. is not a neutral arena on matters important to government. In the United States during the Vietnam War. In the current context. The second intifada is certainly much more violent in its nature and now includes the infamous tactic of suicide bombing. in reality the bulk of higher education and its academics never escape politics. Though the ﬁrst Intifada started with little more than rock-throwing.) This is a policy that does not so much democratize the Israeli army as militarize Israeli civilian society. Israeli educational institutions have followed this pattern.2 The argument for isolating academia from politics was later augmented with the assertion that ʻin the end the best way to resolve issues is to pursue dialogue. states do not support academic freedom or the free ﬂow of ideas in cases that impact on government policies. then others may legitimately boycott them. and threatens academic funding and careers.

In effect. Boycott organizers are in constant touch with the few dissenting Israeli academics. in part. including academic institutions. the Anti-Defamation League would not be expending time. It is a decentralized movement that allows for individual interpretations on the part of its adherents. real pressure is applied from outside on Israeli institutions. is inherently anti-Semitic. most of the time gives only the Israeli side of the story. those offering the Palestinian point of view are labelled anti-Semites and supporters of terrorists. participating in formal exchanges. To the small extent that this is breaking down. ʻin effect if not in intentʼ. and will only harden positions due to resentment over outside pressure. we will ﬁnd ourselves in the time warp of [white-dominated] Rhodesia in the 1970s and South Africa in the 1980s: enforced isolation from without and an
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. magazines and television news. If the ﬁrst part of this argument were really true the reaction against the boycott effort would not be so strenuous. One of the earliest tactics to silence and discredit advocates of the boycott has been the red herring of anti-Semitism. even if it does not mean to. When the occupation is dismantled. In most cases the boycott is directed against Israeli institutions. including the academic boycott. ʻdialogueʼ is unlikely to achieve anything in the future unless. It also ignores the fact that not only was the ﬁrst call for a moratorium on EU funding for research collaboration with Israeli institutions launched by Jewish scholars in the UK (Professor Steven Rose and others). and the like.4 Indeed. Some Israelis have already acknowledged the potential of the boycott. The vast majority of coverage in the press. rather than legitimate means of protest against violations of human rights in Israel. but also that many of the supporters of the boycott are Jewish. we are told.3 It encourages antiSemitism. as many have argued. This fear may come. This argument is based on equating anti-Zionism with anti-Semitism. It should be noted that the academic boycott of Israel as presently pursued is not one of uniform practice. the call for a boycott is aimed at encouraging Israeli academics to act in solidarity and sympathy with their Palestinian colleagues who suffer much worse isolation due to Israeli occupation. particularly in the United States. simultaneously.cally stiﬂed that the boycott against Israel has become necessary. ʻIntellectual exchangesʼ have been going on between Israelis and the rest of the world since 1948 but it has made no difference to the oppressive and colonialist policies of successive Israeli governments. scope and potential effectiveness of the boycott. some even Israeli. The boycott of Israel. energy and money to label the academic boycott as a ʻhijacking of academic freedomʼ and there would not be a rush to launch a number of anti-boycott petitions. the academic boycott will be as well. Under these conditions. far from discouraging Israeli dissent. this is not translated into a situation where no one will talk to them. It incorporates the hard sciences which feed into Israelʼs high-tech economy. it is current Israeli practices and the Zionist colonial project that encourage and feed anti-Semitic discourse. from the awareness that the academic boycott is not just directed at the humanities and social sciences. But it may also be that as a consequence of the boycott Israeli academics are now having a harder time publishing outside the country. it cannot inﬂuence the policies of the Israeli government. The academic boycott is ineffective. sitting on boards and international committees. it conveniently ignores the mounting crescendo of Jewish voices against Zionist and Israeli colonialist practices.
Speciﬁc objections
1. We turn now to more serious issues concerning the objectives. in the USA. The outcry from Zionists indicates a high level of insecurity and fear. However. Israeli economist Yoram Gabai is quoted in the San Francisco Chronicle (8 August 2002):
Faster than expected.

The claim that the boycott ʻtargets the wrong peopleʼ is a more complicated one and deserves close consideration. military raids and travel restrictions that impede the journeys of students and faculty to and from campuses. ʻSuddenly the doors of the universities and libraries [of the world] were closed to our bright students. these have now ceased. No organized protest or resistance to this consistent and prolonged attack on Palestinian academia has come from Israeli academic groups. there was no such motion anywhere in Israeli academia. Israeli policies forbid the travel of Israeli citizens into the Occupied Territories (except if they are going to and from Israeli colonies. There is something obscenely hypocritical in the fact that many of those individuals and organizations (Israeli or otherwise) which have so vocally attacked the boycott have not raised their voices against the destruction of Palestinian academia and society in general. academic or otherwise. We do not believe that the academic boycott hurts Palestinians and harms collaborative efforts. The academic boycott targets the wrong people and hurts Palestinians as well as Israelis..
Never in its history did the senate of any Israeli university pass a resolution protesting the frequent closure of Palestinian universities. These tactics include prolonged shut-downs. television. illegal under international law) and make it extremely onerous for Palestinians in those regions to enter Israel. both within and outside academia. It harms collaborative efforts between Israeli and Palestinian universities.isolationism from within. including academic isolation. Part of that brutal nature has been the employment of tactics designed to prevent Palestinian colleges and universities from functioning in any normal manner.ʼ6 One of the most important achievements of the academic boycott is that it has generated such heated discussion in so many venues (mainstream newspapers. we answer that the uprising has been made necessary and inevitable by the Israeli occupation and its brutal nature. humanitarian
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. It is not that a motion in that direction failed to gather a majority. put forth examples of well-intentioned. have unintentionally helped provide a forum for debating the facts about Palestine and the occupation. Internet discussion lists) that the negative details of the Zionist enterprise have forced themselves onto the consciousness of many people. This is due to the inevitable estrangement and suspicion that have accompanied the continuing colonization and occupation of the Occupied Territories. Professor of Linguistics at Tel Aviv University and one of the few Israeli academics to take a public stand against Israeli occupation policies. has been recently attested to by Frederik de Klerk. Israeli academia continues to do practically nothing to bring the facts to public attention. Almost all of the complaints registered against the boycott of Israel. even the efforts to discredit those who support the boycott. either in the context of a peace treaty or without one as a unilateral act.7
Even with the increasing atrocities committed by the Israeli army since the beginning of the second intifada. which stimulated and motivated advocates of change. has observed. While in the past there have been minor collaborations between Israeli and Palestinian academic institutions in the Occupied Territories..5
The power of national isolation. student publications. The enormous price of isolation will drag us into withdrawing from the [occupied] territories. the former president of South Africa who initiated the move away from apartheid and towards democracy. Thus. If the Israelis claim that these policies have been made necessary by the Palestinian uprising. and to delegitimize the boycott as a strategy of protest. 2. As Tanya Reinhart.. If the boycott achieves nothing more than this it will have achieved a great deal. let alone voice protest over the devastation sowed there during the last uprising. colleges or universities.

we do agree that its opposite. inconvenience. Davis. there is no doubt that such situations result in frustration. particularly in European journals. who have taken a stand against such policies have. ʻhypocriticalʼ and ʻan unacceptable breakdown in the norms of intellectual freedomʼ. or the betterment. the disruption of research and perhaps even careers. The boycott violates the principle of academic freedom and as such is unacceptable. For example. it is not only positive ideas that can make a difference. It has been called ʻcontemptibleʼ. This makes problematic the claim that academic freedom somehow operates in a vacuum and. always leads to the good. Nonetheless. the obstruction of the
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. Taken as individual cases. the most notable cases of the ʻwrong peopleʼ being hurt are those of the relatively few heroic Israeli academics who have put their careers on the line to stand up against the injustice of their countryʼs colonial policies. unimpaired ʻintellectual lifeʼ and ʻexchanges across culturesʼ have failed to lead to the humanization of Zionist policies. In addition. it is to be noted that those brave Israelis.ʼ8 To our minds. wrote in the Chronicle of Higher Education that ʻAcademic boycotts undermine the basic premise of intellectual life that ideas make a difference. Dena S.ʼ9 Unfortunately. both academic and non-academic. a law professor at Cleveland State University. In the case of the academic boycott there are scholars who cannot place publishable material. there are Israeli doctors who cannot receive research assistance from abroad. as Shahid Alam has written. 3. The boycottʼs impingement on the academic freedom of Israeli scholars has been repeatedly condemned. not done so because they had access to foreign academics or foreigners per se. of the world. for the most part. Historically. in and of itself. and the corollary that intellectual exchanges across cultures can open minds. there are individual Israelis who have been asked to leave the boards of scholarly journals. But we believe.Israeli individuals (whose existence we certainly acknowledge) who are allegedly being punished unfairly by the boycott. ʻit is reasonable and moral to impose temporary and partial limits on the academic freedom of a few Israelis if this can help to restore the fundamental rights of millions of Palestinians.

The practice of ʻexchanging visitsʼ and ʻtalking to each otherʼ. of destroying Palestinian civil society. The boycott adherents unfairly single out Israel while ignoring all other military occupations. The resulting thirty-ﬁve years of land conﬁscation. The boycott of Israel ignores the (alleged) facts that (a) the Israeli army is in the Occupied Territories as an act of self-defence against suicide bombers and other terrorists. Sharon received 62 per cent of ballots cast. Numerous examples of how this inﬂuence is exerted can be found on the website of the Project for the New American Century. and of the importation of hundreds of thousands of illegal settlers are not ʻacts of self-defenceʼ. However. On the other hand. Is it not possible that.10 5. and allied rightwing parties. by once more putting these forces in command of the government. of destruction of crops. They have import beyond the Occupied Territories and potentially affect the lives of ordinary citizens of most Western nations. has made it clear that Israeli occupation constitutes an ongoing case of severe injustice. through the actions of the United Nations and the testimony of respected world leaders. The Israeli army and settlers are in the Occupied Territories to annex ʻJudeaʼ. the Americans in Iraq. where Zionist lobbies are extremely powerful within both Congress and the media. Here. Their pointed failure to do so makes them subject to the general boycott of Israel that is now evolving as a consequence of Israeli policies. 4. such as it has been over the last thirty-ﬁve years. his Likud Party. in terms of both the role of the UN and international ﬁnancial support for Israeli occupation.11 In any case.ʻfree ﬂow of ideasʼ ought to be undertaken only in severe and extreme circumstances. ʻSamariaʼ and Gaza. and so forth? All the signatories have in common is that they consider the struggle against Israeli occupation a high priority. the boycott. The Sharon government was put into power by an overwhelming majority vote of Israelis in the election of February 2001. and (b) boycott efforts only encourage and lend comfort to these terrorists. What is the basis of the claim that the signatories of the various moratorium and boycott calls are ʻpickingʼ on Israel and ignoring the behaviour of the Chinese in Tibet. Bush and his neo-conservative advisers see Israel and its aggressive behaviour as a model for their own policies. Israeli goals in the occupied territories have always aimed at possession and absorption of these lands. as Shahid Alam has suggested. of the construction of illegal colonies. one can reasonably deﬁne resistance to these actions on the part of the Palestinians as acts of self-defence. Israelʼs illegal occupation has destroyed ʻintellectual lifeʼ for the Palestinians. can ʻmitigate the Palestinianʼs deep despairʼ and hopefully lead to a reduction in violence of both the ʻcolonizer and the colonizedʼ. This is particularly obvious in the case of the United States. Israeli academics should be claiming for the Palestinians the same rights of academic freedom they claim for themselves. The international community. with the advent of the Sharon government the scale of destruction and brutality has risen to new and shocking levels. houses and other Palestinian property. functioning as a manifestation of ʻworld conscienceʼ. What this electoral history indicates is that the majority of Israelis are either unwilling or
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. and the administration of George W. Because of the international character of the conﬂict. The Israeli–Palestinian crisis remains the most internationalized conﬂict in todayʼs world. on the part of Israeli academics has not produced the courage or insight to stand up and protest this destruction. the Russians in Chechnya. Unfortunately that is exactly the situation successive Israeli governments have brought about with regard to Palestinian higher education. Zionist agendas clearly inﬂuence policy-making in the West. the boycott represents a non-violent alternative route to oppose a regime which many see as itself terrorist. In the January 2003 election the Israeli public reafﬁrmed their allegiance to Sharon.

6. British Medical Journal 311. like its Arabic cousin.html.dtl.com/cgi_bin/article. www. It has usually been associated with a moralistic punishment directed towards an individual or a group that has transgressed a norm without. Shahid Alam. boycott was opposed to the bare use of physical power. Israelʼs ally and patron. but it always anchored itself in a norm. www. See Derek Summerfeld. This leaves us with the non-violent strategy of developing a grassroots. There are those who would look to the government of the United States. p.haaretz.org for the various calls for an academic moratorium on relations with Israeli institutions. However.unable to understand the origins of their own insecurity and the nature of the occupation.gowans/distractions.
Notes
1. haram. See www. See www. www. It is under these circumstances that outside pressure becomes the only viable way of encouraging change in Israel.pjpo. usually of forbidden goods (the Arabic word connects to this theme by deriving theft and stealing). It was. may associate with a whole range of moral punishments (the Arabic word stresses sanctity). 755.newamericancentury.ca/sr.org/letter_taraki. perhaps. 7. p. actually breaking the law. herem. In addition. Haʼaretz supplement in English. www. ʻboycottʼ had a distinctly negative connotation.Zmag. 1995. 5. the US government is itself operating under the same delusions as Israel as to the nature of and reasons for the occupation. 9. who engraved himself on my teenage memory by carrying my ﬁrst name.org/content/print_article. as well as by his ambivalent character and tragic
Radical Philosophy 125 (May/June 20 04)
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. in that precise sense. B13.sympatico. 3. it acted in the name of morality. ʻIsraelis Feel the Boycott Sting: Creeping Sense of Isolation as Culture.html. ibid. The instances of boycott that came to my mind in thinking about this commentary were those of Spinozaʼs excommunication by the Amsterdam Jewish community and his less known immediate predecessor Uriel Acosta. international movement to boycott the institutions of Israeli power at all possible levels: economic. 8. 4. sfgate. lehahrim. It thus espouses a morality that is associated with property rights rather than human solidarity.com/hasen/pages/shart. never on the radical side of culture. Admittedly. Z net. to apply the necessary pressure. the Hebrew for boycott.
Not so simple
Reflections on the academic boycott of Israel
Uri Hadar
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n the culture in which I was brought up. www3. 16 May 2003. in the language that mediated this culture. www. 11.html.breastfeeding. Economy Takes Hitsʼ.pjpo.jhtml?itemno= 293793.org. Chronicle of Higher Education. ʻIsraeli Medical Association Shirks “Political Aspects” of Tortureʼ. 2.cfm?itemID=2961&sectionID=22.com/advocacy_boycott. cultural and academic. 10. Shahid Alam.cgi?ﬁle=chronile/archive/2002/08/06/mn33709. stands explicitly for material dispossession. 18 April 2003. but its verbal form. 4 February 2003.

as far as one can see. whether the speciﬁc form that calls for an academic boycott. almost every university has a department or an institute of strategic studies. the forces of internal security. and so on. They (we) have few dealings with those institutions and such boycotting would be void of practical delivery. According to some.
Academic morality
The army has its obvious links with academia. governmental ministries. to my mind. especially that of the USA. Then there were all kinds of cultural bans of books and people by oppressive or blind regimes. but did not score much better for emotional valence. the occupation is essentially a testing ground for strategies of regional domination that the USA is interested in developing. but the South Africa episode sufﬁces to make the point that there may be historical conditions that warrant a boycott. why single out Israeli universities as the target of a boycott? After all.end. It involves a measuring of suffering for which I lack the emotional tools. in extreme economic degradation and with persistent killing of innocent people – justify a boycott. Therefore. The economic sanction of Iraq by the US-led coalition brought me to the present time frame. the boycott enterprise can only hope to disseminate a moral message. Of course. remarkable for both reason and impact. it makes sense to promote those forms of action that best realize the potential of the international academy to have an impact. the Israeli people. The question is whether the current situation in Israel–Palestine is of such a nature and. Those who will necessarily suffer from the boycott. there was the boycott of South Africa. My perception of the occupation is that the conditions that Israel imposes on millions of Palestinians – with no basic human and civil rights. in the absence of a wider economic and cultural boycott. A complete commercial and economic boycott would be very effective in bringing Israel into line with these international norms. So. express a moral distaste with Israeli occupation. doubtful that mainstream American political thinking will ever view the Israeli occupation in ways that could lead to a general boycott. if it is. It makes no sense to earmark for boycotting Israeli hospitals or social services. They justify a statement by the civilized world of its utter condemnation of these imperturbable Israeli practices. rather than ending. Boycott was still essentially blind and moralistic. here we face the crucial question regarding the academic boycott: can Israeli universities be seen to be tied up with the oppressive Israeli machinery with sufﬁcient clarity to warrant the call for a boycott? The answer to this is not simple. is supportable. In addition. I believe it is against this background that the academic boycott needs to be considered. the most obvious targets for a moral condemnation are those institutions that are more directly involved with the machinery of Israeli oppression of Palestinians: the army. It is. But even this principle has to target institutions that can be seen to connect with the Israeli machinery of oppression. unpleasant as it may be. have repeatedly and democratically decided to perpetuate the occupation: we have honestly earned whatever consequences may befall us in this respect (although there will be some thousands in the position of innocent bystanders). Generally. the international community has repeatedly asserted that the Israeli occupation violates its norms. but I doubt that it changes the general ambience of either the word or the concept. However. the idea of a ban on trade with Israel is inconceivable. The ﬁrst question that arises here is. for example. where detailed research is conducted into
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. a cognitive travesty to endeavour to give a complete answer to the general question of which conditions warrant a boycott. continuing now for over thirtyﬁve years. of course. in the crucial discourse of American politics. and Israeli public opinion would probably not allow a serious regression of material living conditions. Israelʼs economy is all but dependent on external economies. Alas. it cannot be effectively exercised against governmental institutions. It is. rather than be physically effective. First. since the call for a boycott comes from academic and arts circles.

Academics have considerable beneﬁts from their share in state power: a ﬁne working environment. like everywhere else. Is its funding by the Ministry of Defence ethically problematic? Should conscientious researchers refuse such funding? Or is it only research that is more directly related to military operational capacity that should be condemned or boycotted. Universities are an inherent part of a stateʼs power structure and as such the evils of the stateʼs policies. and for all I know still is. and then irrespective of how it is funded? Third. Consider the extent to which high-ranking military people are in decision-making positions with regard to higher education. if one could show that the army inﬂuences the directions of research in these programmes. against the Israeli occupation. Still. say into the mechanisms and epidemiology of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). educational. if there is such a thing. This probably does not result from a determination on the part of academia to remain free of military inﬂuence. but I am not aware of any study that has taken up this case in any detail. I do not know the extent of this and have a feeling that it is much more extensive than what we can readily see. some academic research is funded by the Ministry of Defence. and therefore have the ability to promote those who are dear to them. strategic studies and military history are recognized and legitimate academic disciplines and it requires some extra arguments to condemn these enterprises. who was.
A qualiﬁed boycott
Let me start with an illustration of academic contribution to the evils of Israeli occupation that is probably the most bafﬂing of which I am aware. Again. But does Israeli academia take on this imperative? Again. This point is not self-evident and does not originate only in career structures. The only way in which they can extricate themselves from the evils of state power is actively to resist it. it is importat here to consider more generally the role that academia plays in the militarization of Israeli culture. I think that the investigation of this matter is an important undertaking. the universities are effectively ofﬁcer-free. civil servants). However. It is so saturated with paradoxes that even its description is conceptually taxing. While I doubt that in Israel the level of engagement of academic personnel in governmental projects exceeds what is considered normal in the industrialized world. but still. To me this is a basic principle of academic morality.diverse military matters. privileged access to the media. that would be very pertinent to our object here. and so on. Second. directly or indirectly. in turn. In Israel. Compared to national and municipal politics. privileged pension schemes. project back onto them. especially legal. It features a well-known Israeli philosopher. a reasonable and secure income. the academy provides considerable professional support for governmental institutions. The running proposals are that all appointments from the level of dean upwards would be totally controlled by governing bodies that have a clear majority of non-academic personnel (say. consider the research I know of. which is saturated by high-ranking ofﬁcers (perhaps with the exclusion of the banking and legal sectors). but I am not aware of it having been done. tenure. The only way in which academics can steer clear of such projection is by actively resisting the evils of state power. Currently. this involvement may nevertheless provide the ultimate argument in favour of the academic boycott. If successful – which they may well be – these changes will open up universities to an unprecedented level of inﬂuence by politicians and the military (whose long-term impact is frightening). the government is pursuing a very aggressive programme of restructuring university management. the Ministry of Defence is virtually professor-free). a logician by training and reputation. much of which is used by the army. diplomatic and economic institutions (incidentally. few other establishments that channel power in Israel are as free of military inﬂuence as are the universities. the answer is not simple. as well as to business and industry. Yet he has been pivotal in writing the ultimate
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. Of course. again.

they offer the widest and most consistent support for the most radical resistance movement in the Jewish community. Some colleagues decided not to attend the conference. but it is also far from leaving the task of resistance to a numbered few. I wish to note the special considerations that face the Israeli activist in publicly supporting the academic boycott. of circumventing the inherent blindnesses of boycotting. A couple of years ago. They take leading positions in such organizations as Checkpoint Watch. viewed from the angle of those anti-occupation activities that take place on a day-to-day basis in Israel – marginal as they may be – academics play a central role in them. and others. none of this is terribly remarkable. the Israeli activist must ask herself whether the academic boycott enterprise is of such a high priority as to risk the weakening of other crucial and urgent activities.
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. a text known as the armyʼs ethical code. In promoting and popularizing the ethical code. that the drive to mobilize academics towards such activities called itself ʻThe Campus is Not Silentʼ.. so let me just formulate the following cautious statement: Israeli campuses have so far been remarkably quiet. The majority of faculty and students have no idea about these activities and many have not heard of ʻThe Campus is Not Silentʼ. and (3) responsive to and able to make allowances for anti-occupation activity within or by the academy. He develops semi-philosophical arguments in favour of targeted killings of Palestinians and tries to formalize the ethically affordable level of injury to innocent bystanders.fﬁpp. This is particularly poignant considering that the Rosesʼ petition in support of the academic boycott has stirred hundreds of Israeli academics to write angry letters to their colleagues and sign a counter-petition on the pretext that the boycott violates academic freedom. perhaps most remarkably. taken to its limits and beyond. When the ﬁrst FFIPP conference against the occupation (see www. the economic and human degradation of Palestinians. not only with regard to the occupation. Not that there is no activity on the campuses. namely the refusal of military service in the Occupied Territories. it seems. And. Again. linguistics. psychology. Space limitations do not allow me to cite more examples here. when demonstrators against the separation wall are being shot at with live ammunition by Israeli soldiers.. about three hundred and ﬁfty faculty members signed the letter in support of selective objection (facing the call for legal action against them by the Minister of Education). he gives soldiers advice (in various media) on when it is and when it is not ethical to open ﬁre on human targets. this sufﬁced to stir an angry reaction from within the circles of ʻThe Campus is Not Silentʼ. Here a lack of active resistance to state power is. mathematics (!). petitions. history. but it sufﬁces to make me feel that I cannot support an academic boycott that is not qualiﬁed in a serious manner. to my mind. Taʼayush. So marked was the absence of an academic voice against the occupation. but also regarding the persistent undermining of Palestinian higher education. can take its own subversive measures. the violation of civil rights in the territories. In these times. in fact there is quite a lot of it – meetings. Public support for the boycott will alienate many fellow activists and put obstacles in the way of anti-occupation activities. Only a call for an academic boycott that would be detailed in this manner stands a chance. (2) selective and targets those sectors of the academy that are most directly connected with either Israeli state power or symbols of that power (high-tech research comes to mind). in my perception. Betselem. Silence. and so on. This level of support is far from being state shattering.org) proposed discussing the academic boycott (academically). Many of her fellow activists will be especially sensitive and resistant to this idea. lectures and debates – but it remains within the conﬁnes of a small margin. to my mind. Yet. demonstrations. Many departmental sectors in Israeli universities – notably. Finally. Qualiﬁed in the sense that it is (1) well-researched and argued (as suggested above). those of philosophy. various arts and cultural studies – breed a considerable level of anti-occupation activism. as these numbered few sometimes hasten to claim.text that serves to render military practices morally kosher.